


Mr. Hurricane

by spqr



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aged-Up Peter Parker, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter is 26, Post-Canon, grad school
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-25 20:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16204964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spqr/pseuds/spqr
Summary: Peter makes it to the ripe old age of 26 without anyone finding out he’s Spider-Man. And then he falls asleep during a B&E at Stark Tower, and the rest is—well, the rest is this.





	Mr. Hurricane

 

Peter hasn’t slept in fifty-eight hours.

 

It’s not the longest he’s ever gone without sleep, but it’s pretty close. He had his eye on two free hours for a nap today, but then MJ texted for an ‘emergency meeting,’ so he had to run across campus to meet her at their favorite spot during her break and listen about how she thinks her thesis supervisor might have been checking out her ass, and should she report him to the administration, which turned into three hours of #metoo ranting, and by the time that was over he was already half an hour late for his biochem lecture, and...yeah. Sleep is starting to feel like a fairytale.

 

Nevertheless, he’s at the base of Stark Tower at eight PM sharp, idling around behind the dumpsters at the service entrance around back. Ned’s three minutes late opening the door tonight, and when he does appear he’s frantic, waving Peter through in a rush.

 

As they hurry down the dark service corridor that leads to the Ice Box, where Ned works, he tells Peter, “Someone found my worm.”

 

“What?” Peter says. A spike of panic shoots through him—Ned should’ve warned him, and then he never would’ve shown up to loiter around outside, apparently _on camera_. He could be home right now, sleeping for the three hours before he has to go on patrol. “Did they—what, did they not—did you get it back up or something?”

 

“I wrote a new one,” Ned says. “I think it’s working. But I had to purge, like, two years of cache data to keep them from tracing it back to me, and—yeah. It was a mess.”

 

Peter’s still a little panicked. “Is it still a mess?”

 

“Nah, should be fine now.” Ned’s tone usually wouldn’t inspire great confidence, but Peter’s known him since they were ten, and it’s when Ned starts to _stop_ sounding casual that you need to start worrying. “You’ve got your free three hours.”

 

They split up—Peter heads for an elevator down to the sub-basement, while Ned goes back to the Ice Box to head home for the night. As the elevator doors slide shut, Ned offers Peter a solemn salute. Peter schools his expression, stands up straight, and delivers one back.

 

The auxiliary labs in the sub-basements of Stark Tower lay dormant for most of the day. Peter envies them, dark and cool and quiet and peaceful. There are cameras and sensors on every inch of the place, controlled and monitored by Tony Stark’s own security system, which Peter assumes is pretty damn secure, considering it has to watch the back’s of the Universe’s Most Wanted, the Avengers. But for three hours a night, Ned’s worm cycles all the cameras through ‘lens maintenance,’ a completely bullshit process that gives Peter time to generally try to stave off death in any way he can.

 

* * *

 

If you’d asked Peter when he was fifteen, he would’ve probably admitted, grudgingly, that his lifestyle was unsustainable. Highschool during the day, six hours of homework a night, then eight hours of patrol, two hours of sleep, and start over again. Not a single free moment to…have a girlfriend, or go to parties, or hang out with Ned, or binge new games, or figure out how normal teenage lives were supposed to go.

 

It was killing him, and he knew it. But he had a plan. He was going to join the Avengers. He was going to be part of a team, which meant he could take a load off. He could go on dates. He could maybe go to college. Get a job at a coffee shop, or a work-study at the library, or something else that college students did. Join a frat? No, but—you get the idea.

 

Then a guy named Jasper Sitwell tracked him down on top of a building and dropped a tablet with something called the _Sokovia Accords_ on it in his lap. And he told Peter that as a masked vigilante, he either had to sign it, or hang up the suit for good.

 

Peter was seventeen. The idea of having to get approval for his actions everytime some little old lady was getting robbed in an alleyway seemed super impractical and also super dangerous. Even though the Avengers had all signed it, it was… Even if it meant he never got to be part of a team, never got to rest, he couldn’t sign it.

 

So he webbed Jasper Sitwell to the roof’s emergency exit door, helpfully left the unsigned tablet at his feet, and swung away into the sunset.

 

He can’t say being a fugitive from SHIELD has really made his life any easier. Even in high school, Ned was good enough with a computer to keep _Peter Parker_ and _Spider-Man_ as distinct and separate entities, but hiding like this means no hospitals, no advice on how to improve his suit’s durability, his web fluid’s tensile strength. No shared burden. And when he tries to help out on something big, like he did with Thanos, he has to hightail it out of there ASAP as soon as all the civilians are safe.

 

College, he actually managed. Got his bachelor’s in Biochem Engineering, got a good job, even got himself a boyfriend. Well, the last two sort of came together and then went away together, but Peter can’t say no one warned him about dating the CEO. For a while it was great—he was still tired, but he had Harry, had someone who knew all his secrets, had lab space and a steady salary and was even thinking about getting a dog.

 

But you know what they say. _All good things,_ et cetera. Now Peter has grad school and a dorm room and quality time with his own left hand and stolen Stark labs.

 

* * *

 

Something smacks down on the table in front of Peter’s face, and he jolts awake.

 

It takes him a second to remember where he is, but when he does all the blood drains out of his body. He’s in Stark Tower. In the auxiliary labs. He was just asleep. Asleep in Stark Tower, _illegally_ , for who knows how long. And standing in front of him is…

 

Tony Stark. Arms crossed, expression unreadable, still sweaty and in a track suit, hair stuck to his forehead, like he stopped in the middle of a workout to come down here to drop one of Peter’s own biophys textbooks on the table to give Peter a heart attack. Which…he probably did. Given that Peter’s, you know, an intruder.

 

“Start talking,” Tony says.

 

“Um,” Peter declares. Not his best work, he’ll admit, but he did just wake up 0.7 seconds ago from the only real sleep he’s had in a week. He can feel the creases the sleeve of his hoodie left on his cheek. “Hi. I’m…sorry? For breaking into your lab. Mr. Stark.”

 

Tony shakes his head. “Uh-uh. Not good enough.”

 

Peter’s mind grasps at straws, too groggy to function. “I won’t do it again?” Nothing. Tony just stares, standing over Peter in the blue halflight like some sort of angel of doom. “This is the last time,” Peter insists, as the rest of his body starts to wake up and panic. “Really. I’ll go break into the Baxter Building next time.”

 

“As nice as it is to hear Reed Richards was your second choice, kid, I’m gonna need more than that.” Tony’s eyes search his face, calculating. “Who are you?”

 

“Peter. Peter Parker.” No use lying. He’s on-camera—Tony will find him anyway.

 

“What are you doing in my lab, Peter Parker?”

 

“Um. Nothing.” No one’s ever accused Peter of being a smooth talker. No one’s ever accused Peter of being a smooth _anything_. His eyes stray inadvertantly to the external hard drive that’s still plugged into the work station, and his heart seizes. Tony definitely sees what he’s doing, but still, Peter tries to discreetly unplug it and slide it into his backpack. “Absolutely nothing at all. Just—watching porn. Holo porn.”

 

“Funny, that’s the same _exact_ excuse my IT guy uses when he doesn’t want me to know he’s been hacking. Actually, he used it this morning when I came down to the Ice Box to ask about the worm I found in my system. Now I’m thinking it was _his_ worm, and you’re _his…_ I don’t know. Did you bribe him? Are you blackmailing him?”

 

“No!” Peter exclaims. “No, Ned’s just my friend. He would never—well obviously he _did_ , but you can’t fire him. Please. Really. He’s just a good friend. And if you fire him he’ll go work for Justin Hammer and he knows how to get into your systems so—“

 

“Jesus, kid, take a breath.” Tony pulls out another chair at the table and sits, defusing the situation with one easy movement. “Ned’s not getting fired. He’s too smart.”

 

Peter deflates. Even in what’s probably the highest-stress scenario he’s faced in the last couple months, ever since that thing with Doc Ock, his eyelids are trying to close. Really, he could be thrown in SHIELD jail on the Raft at any moment, and all he can think about is putting his head back down on his arms and drifting back off to sleep.

 

He tries to ease out of the conversation. “Great. I’ll just go then—“

 

“Not so fast, Parker.” Tony holds out his hand expectantly. “Hand it over. Whatever it is, you developed it on my systems, so I own it anyway.”

 

Peter doesn’t really have the energy to tell him that Harry Osborne beat him to that particular punch. He also doesn’t have the energy to run. So instead he says, “Mr. Stark. I—I don’t want to go to prison. But I also can’t join the Avengers.”

 

Tony frowns. “Yeah, kid, we’re really hurting without your amazing power of insane non-sequiturs. What the hell are you talking about?”

 

Like a man going to the gallows, Peter plugs his hard drive back in. His last saved workstation opens itself up automatically, tossing a dozen different files across the dark glass table in front of them. Suit repairs, web fluid calculations, HUD goggle improvements, chemical equations for anaesthetic that should work with his metabolism.

 

Peter doesn’t know what he expects. Jasper Sitwell to come bursting through the door with a copy of the Sokovia Accords and righteous fury in his eyes. Captain America to appear out of nowhere and Tony to say _cuff ‘im, Cap._ Insta-death, maybe.

 

None of that happens. What happens is:

 

Tony’s eyes light up. He grabs the file with Peter’s web fluid specs in it and blows it up into all its component pieces. And he says, “God, _finally._ I’ve been wanting to pick your brains about how this stuff works since like _2016._ ”

 

* * *

 

Peter’s schedule in 2027 goes a little something like this—

 

Class Monday through Wednesday. Thesis work Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Stark Tower every night from eight to eleven, patrols from eleven to four. Sleep four to eight, unless he has an early shift at the coffee shop, in which case sleep is four to five and coffee shop is six to eight. Sunday mornings are for running down to _The Daily Bugle_ to haggle over prices for the latest batch of Spider-Man photos. It’s a toss-up, because either he has a lot of good photos and a lot of good bruises to go with them, or a lot of mediocre photos and a pain-free body. Sunday afternoons are for visiting Aunt May. Coffee shop shifts can also be kludged into any available daylight hours throughout the rest of the week, as can naps. Sometimes MJ needs him to cover her shift at the law library, and he can always use the money so he always says yes. Sometimes patrols run late, sometimes studying has to take the place of sleep, sometimes Jameson doesn’t pay him at all.

 

There is no time for injuries. Meals are protein bars more often than not. He’s got a lifetime of student loans and no job prospects. But justice waits for no man.

 

* * *

 

Peter’s lucky. He can count on one hand the number of times he’s been really, _badly_ hurt. His super-fast healing tends to take care of things before they can become life-threatening. But sometimes he’s not quick enough, or not strong enough. Every superhero has been there at some point, and every one of them has had to figure out how to cope.

 

The first time he was fifteen. The Vulture dropped him five hundred feet into a lake. Peter managed to haul himself to the shore and just sort of laid there until Ned left the party they’d been at and found him there. Despite Peter’s garbled, moaned protests, Ned called MJ, who was training to be a volunteer EMT, and together they managed to set Peter’s arms, which were definitely broken, and immobilize his spine, which only probably was. They coordinated telling their guardians they were at each others’ houses (Peter’s still proud of that bit of voice acting), and Peter laid awake in agony for the whole weekend in a Motel 6 while they alternated freaking out and trying to calm him down. Eventually his bones healed themselves. There’s still a bump in his right shin, but it’s okay.

 

The second time he was eighteen. (Well— _technically_ the second time he was seventeen and he turned to dust in the middle of Broad, but he doesn’t count that.) Mysterio blasted him with some sort of green energy that sapped all his strength and then hurled him through a brownstone with some sort of electro-net. Luckily it was a brownstone belonging to one Ben Grimm, recently married and unhappy to have had his honeymoon interrupted. The Fantastic Four hosted Peter in the Baxter Building for a full eight days while Reed Richards and Sue Storm worked to figure out a way to undo the effects of the green energy blast. They never once asked him to take off his mask, for which he was grateful. He couldn’t have said no. They were the only option he had.

 

The third time he was twenty-three. That was the worst one. Kraven the Hunter stuck him with three harpoons—one in the chest, one in the gut, one in the thigh. Peter did a lot of yelling in agony that time around. He cut the lines with a pocket knife a hot dog vendor leant him, then limped back to his apartment, luckily only a block away when he finally managed to put Kraven down. His hands shook when he broke off the starburst arrowheads on the harpoons, slick with blood. He was crying, just visceral wet noises in his throat, but he did it anyway: he broke the heads off all three harpoons and pulled them out. Then there was a lot of blood, everywhere, and he remembered putting a number in his phone after talking to this guy in Hell’s Kitchen on patrol one night. He called it, and blacked out.

 

When he came to there was a woman sitting by his bedside, blood on her face, hair a mess, eyes haunted. Peter’s body was a patchwork of bandages. Claire only ever spoke one sentence to him: “The next time you call me, I’m sending an ambulance.”

 

She definitely meant it. Peter hasn’t figured out yet what he’s going to do when the fourth time comes around. Roll over and die, probably.

 

* * *

 

Tony Stark is waiting on the curb when Peter’s biophys lecture lets out.

 

He’s leaning against the side of an orange Lamborghini, which Peter guesses is a little better than the Iron Man suit in terms of visibility, but not by much. He looks good, windswept hair and amber lenses and a hint of salt in his beard. Peter doesn’t think he was awake enough to notice the other day, but he got four hours last night and he’s alert now. Aware.

 

Tony’s expression shifts from abject boredom to a soft smile as Peter approaches. “Oh hey, Pete,” he says. “I’m actually here for someone else—“

 

“Haha,” Peter intones. “Hilarious. Can we go wherever you want to take me as fast as possible so I can get back here in time for my two-thirty shift?”

 

Tony frowns, turning as Peter rounds the car to get in the passenger seat. “Shift?”

 

“Yeah, I work at the coffee shop.”

 

“That wasn’t on your tax records. I admire a man who cheats the IRS.”

 

They climb into the car at the same time. Peter twists to shove his backpack in the narrow space that’s taken the place of a back seat, and thinks to himself that Tony’s lucky he’s so chill. Other people might freak out of they heard Iron Man was snooping around their tax records. But not Peter. Peter’s definitely not sweating about the one time two years ago he got drunk and claimed three dependents out of sheer desperation.

 

“So,” he says, as they leave NYU behind. “Where are we going?”

 

Tony quits whatever he was saying about MIT being the superior campus, speeding into the empty space between two service vans. “You have a lunch date. I tried to hide you, but all the security alerts for the tower go through Steve, too, so now he wants to meet you. Don’t worry, there won’t be any Sokovia Accords. Just pastrami.”

 

There is indeed pastrami. Tony parks the Lambo illegally in front of a family-owned deli in Brooklyn, tucks a hundred dollar bill into the meter maid’s pocket, and leads the way inside. There are also, however, Sokovia Accords.

 

The stack of paper sits next to Steve. Has its own spot at the table. Peter starts calculating fast exits, how to get off the grid and disappear, but then Steve stands up, and instead of offering his hand for Peter to shake, he hands him a red marker. “I had some issues with the Accords, too,” he says. “I fixed mine. So let’s fix yours.”

 

Peter takes the pen cautiously and just stands there for a long second, staring Steve down. Steve stares back. It’s a New York stare. Queens versus Brooklyn. Peter would win, but Tony sighs and shoves him into the booth. “Don’t want to miss your shift, kid.”

 

He has a point. Peter spends his one-hour lunch break stealing potato chips off Tony’s plate with one hand and editing the Sokovia Accords with the other.

 

It should feel weird, probably. Sitting in a deli in a booth across Captain America, undercover in a hoodie and a World War II Veteran baseball cap, tucked in hip-to-hip with the richest man in the city. And it does feel a little weird.

 

But mostly, every time he makes an edit, every time Tony’s eyes crinkle privately at the corners like Peter did something right, it just feels like relief.

 

* * *

 

Peter’s gotten good at balancing a cup of coffee in his hand while he swings. The most important thing is to make sure the lid is on tight—he’s made that mistake more than once. It was worth it though, because he learned his lesson, and now he can watch the sun rise some mornings on the top of skyscrapers in Manhattan with his cup of coffee and a hot-off-the-presses copy of _The Daily Bugle_. It’s a guilty pleasure.

 

Guilty, because sometimes he thinks he likes the world better from up here. It’s shrunken, smoothed over, simplified. It looks a lot less ugly from couple thousand feet up, washed in grainy white sun, the frustrating, painful statistics of everyday life and everyday struggles all running together like watercolors on canvas.

 

He loves the world. Loves his city, really. The people in it. And he’d die for all of them, a hundred million times over. He _has_ died for them, actually. He just…

 

Sometimes he doesn’t feel like he’s part of it anymore. The city, the world. The human race. He doesn’t want to be, but he can feel that he’s been removed. He _is_ removed.

 

Just…looking down on it all.

 

* * *

 

At midnight, Doc Ock throws Peter out a fifty-first storey window.

 

It’s been a long night already. Peter feels time slow, feels himself hang suspended for a long moment at the top of the arch, before he starts to fall. Glass shards glitter in the light from inside. Doc Ock’s mechanical tentacles hold him to the sides of the building, perched above Peter like some sort of futuristic gargoyle, poised to pounce. Peter feels his eyes blink, lids sticking closed for a long moment before they un-glunk and peel open. He should probably be thinking something existential about youth or missed opportnity or something. Instead he thinks _Aunt May’s gonna be so mad at me for dying again._

 

Then Iron Man slams into his right side at an incredibly high speed, spiriting him away to the left, and the thought evacuates his skull via his right ear.

 

Doc Ock is no match for Tony and the two other Avengers that show up to the fight. Peter hasn’t met Hawkeye or Scarlet Witch officially yet, but they both pause for a moment to wave to him before taking off in the direction of Stark Tower. He waves back and tries to look thankful, which is tough through the mask. When Scarlet Witch’s red trail starts to fade away into the ink black sky, when he thinks he’s alone, he eases himself down onto the curb next to an overturned hot dog cart and helps himself to a weiner.

 

Tony sits down next to him a moment later. “Give me one. No mustard.”

 

Peter gives him one. They eat in silence for a little while, watching the cops argue with SHIELD agents about how best to evacuate the stabilized office building. Scarlet Witch and Peter moved most of the biggest chunks of rubble out of the way, but the street is still littered with glass. Peter started to pick it up, but one of the cops told him they had the street-sweeper coming, not to worry about it, go take a load off. Cops are good people.

 

Tony finishes his hotdog and wipes his hands on his pants. Still chewing, Peter glances sideways at him; Tony’s eyes are locked on him. Peter looks away, uncomfortable, and swallows his bite before he should. “Thanks for the assist, Mr. Stark.”

 

“Yeah,” Tony says, offhand. “Why didn’t you call us?”

 

Peter frowns. “What do you mean?”

 

“I _mean_ , why did we have to find out you were throwing down with Dr. Tentacle Porn from the nightly news?” Tony hasn’t looked away. “Why didn’t you call for backup?”

 

Peter shifts. “It wasn’t that bad.”

 

“Not that—” Tony cuts himself off with an incredulous snort. “Come on, Pete. I don’t know if you noticed, but you were in _free fall_ when we got here.”

 

“That’s pretty normal,” Peter insists, trying to calm him down. “Most of the time when I have to fight the big bads like Doc Ock, I get pretty much beat to a pulp. You know, dropped off buildings, hit by subway trains, that sort of thing. But then I figure out their weakness and use it against them, or I just run away and come back later. No big deal.”

 

He risks a glance at Tony. It’s a mistake. Tony’s watching him even more intently than he was before, just…unwavering. Eyebrows drawn down, like he just had some sort of terrible realization. Peter really just wants to go back to his dorm and sleep. “Look,” he says. “I don’t—even if I _wanted_ to call for backup, it’s kind of hard to dig my phone out of my boot when I’m busy dodging giant metal arms. Plus, I don’t have your numbers—“

 

Tony digs a hand in Peter’s boot. Peter stops talking, because that’s something that requires all of his attention. Tony’s hand, in his tight lycra boot, fishing out Peter’s thirteen-year-old iPhone 5. He takes one look at the cracked screen and tosses it down on the sidewalk next to them, then digs out his own phone—a sleek tenth-gen Stark Phone—turns it on with a flick of his wrist, and says, “Friday? Wipe this phone to factory settings, put all Avengers contacts in, load all of Peter’s old contacts, and set passcode to stored _Peter Parker_ 5-point voice profile on file. Oh, and put me on speed dial.”

 

Peter takes the phone when Tony hands it over. “Speed dial is still a thing?”

 

“No. But if you just yell _‘help!’_ at the phone, Friday will call me.” He flashes a lopsided smirk, so Peter will know he’s joking. Maybe. Maybe joking. “What’s that suit of yours made out of, by the way? Feels thin. Spandex? I bet spandex.”

 

“It’s not spandex,” Peter lies. “Well. This one is. But I’m only wearing this one because my good one got a big tear in the knee and I don’t have anywhere to repair nanotech fabric since I stopped being able to…illegallyuseyourlabs.”

 

By the vaguely guilty expression on Tony’s face, he hadn’t even thought of that. He stands with an air of finality and claps his hands together. “Okay. Sounds like you’re due for an upgrade anyway. Swing by Stark Tower during your lunch break tomorrow and we’ll get you outfitted. You can bring the old suit, if you want. For reference.”

 

Peter, who doesn’t like getting thrown out of windows wearing only lycra, agrees.

 

* * *

 

MJ once told him that it took a very specific type of person to go running around New York flinging themselves off rooftops, and that she always knew, even before she knew he was Spider-Man, that Peter was exactly that type of person.

 

At the time Peter had been too relieved she wasn’t yelling at him to do anything but agree. And as time went on, he realized she was right. He doesn’t know what his life would’ve been like without Spider-Man, can’t picture it. The feeling of free-fall, of one thin web being the only thing between him and the pavement, of gravity dragging him down one bone at a time, every atom of his being fighting against it, fighting to stay up in the air, the wind cold and bracing against his skin even through the suit, the world rushing by in blurs of color. He doesn’t think he could live without it. He doesn’t want to find out. He doesn’t want to wake up one morning and have to hesitate on the edge of the precipice, judge the distance before jumping, look up at the sky and not be able to get to it, get _into_ it. He’s exactly that sort of person—he lives his life above five hundred feet.

 

* * *

 

Peter’s phone rings at eight in the morning.

 

He considers throwing it at the wall, but then he remembers that it’s his new Stark Phone, not his indestructible survive-boss-battles iPhone 5. So instead he just tries to hit the ‘call decline’ button. It answers the call anyways, treacherous tech.

 

Tony’s face appears on the screen. It’s a video call. Peter’s like eight layers deep in his cocoon of blankets, hair probably stuck up in every direction, bags under his eyes. Tony is, as usual, fucking gorgeous. Whatever. “Hey,” Peter says. “Do you think I have the body to be a stripper? I’m seriously considering dropping out of school.”

 

Tony answers without missing a beat. “You definitely have the body, Pete, but don’t go doing anything drastic right after I paid off your student loans. Quit the coffee shop, if the call of the pole is too hard to resist. Just don’t tell Steve.”

 

Peter’s brain is still stuck on _paid off your student loans_ , so he lags and forgets to deliver his requisite line about Cap’s old-fashioned sensibilities. Tony doesn’t seem to notice. He plows right past Peter’s silence, “Anyway, this video popped up on Buzzfeed this morning—apparently someone taped me when I came to deliver the new suit, and now everyone thinks I’m banging an NYU grad student. So heads up.”

 

“Great, thanks.” Peter doesn’t think he’s ever actually met anyone who lives in his building. He mostly uses the window, between the hours of midnight and five AM, which isn’t really conducive to building casual neighborly relationships. “I’m going back to bed.”

 

“Pete, wait—” Tony starts, but Peter hangs up.

 

The phone starts ringing again the second Peter’s head hits the pillows. He doesn’t answer it, but he hears the override go through again, the piercing ring replaced by the sounds of Tony’s workshop, Tony’s breathing. It seems like Tony starts to say something, then stops himself. Peter’s drifting, but he cracks his eyes, just a sliver.

 

The way the phone landed in the blankets, Tony’s staring right at his face. And he is _staring_ , like Peter’s the most confusing thing he’s ever seen. The most fascinating.

 

Right before he hangs up, Peter hears Tony mutter _damn._

 

* * *

 

Peter’s second favorite Avenger has got to be Black Widow.

 

If she ever heard him and Tony referring to her as _Mama Spider_ , like they do when they’re dicking around in the labs, she’d probably kill both of them. Natasha’s been a member of this team since the beginning, but she knows what it’s like to be an outsider, probably more than the rest of them. Peter was a fugitive—a _criminal_ —for a long time in SHIELD’s eyes, and Natasha even more than Tony does a lot to ease the transition.

 

Hawkeye’s good too. Clint and Peter have twin habits of sitting on chairs the wrong way. And Steve’s cool to be around when he’s not being righteous and preachy. He takes Thor to a frat party, which turns out to be just as bad of an idea in reality as in theory. Bruce hangs out in the labs sometimes when Peter and Tony are working; he’s got some good ideas about web fluid, and he helps Peter with a part of his thesis that involves gamma radiation. Peter’s only seen him Hulk out once, and it was awesome.

 

Scarlet Witch puts Peter a little bit on edge. Wanda’s a nice lady, but the only magic-user Peter’d ever dealt with before he met her was Mysterio, who’s got a bad history of hitting Peter with near-lethal blows. She has two tattoos over her heart, one that says _Vision_ and one that says _Pietro_. Tony warned Peter never to ask her about them, so Peter asked Tony instead. Tony just said they were people she lost. People they lost.

 

Rhodey likes to call Peter _pipsqueak_ , but Peter’s pretty sure he’s only doing it because he knows it bugs him. The first time Peter meets the Falcon, Sam tells him that if he ever needs to talk, he can talk to him. He’s the only person Peter can remember saying that since Aunt May back in high school, so Peter says he’ll consider it and is surprised to find he actually means it. Bucky recommends kneading bread as a way to de-stress. Peter, who can’t afford to punch another hole in his dorm wall, takes the advice.

 

They’re nice, the Avengers. They welcome him into the fold like it’s the easiest thing in the world. But he still…he’s been fighting alone for a long time. It’s a process.

 

* * *

 

Peter can count on one hand the number of people he’s slept with.

 

Gwen, senior year of high school, because he loved her. Loved her bubbly smile as much as he loved her mean streak, the fact that she cut her own bangs as much as the way she always made sure to beat him by exactly one point on their math tests as much as the complete lack of hesitation when she hitched up her skirt and climbed into his lap.

 

Harry, after he graduated college, because he loved him. Because he was one of Peter’s oldest friends, and no matter how much Ned and MJ tried to warn him that something was wrong, that Harry was suspicious, Peter never suspected a thing. Because of Harry’s easy smile and his easy beauty and the way he treated money like it was nothing _, nothing_ compared to Peter, because of his strong arms and his unwavering surety and how he fit right back into Peter’s heart like he never left.

 

Johnny Storm, when he was twenty-five, because things with Harry had just gone south spectacularly and Peter wanted someone to hurt him. Be rough with him. Fuck his brains out and then part ways in the morning without so much as a backward glance.

 

His life doesn’t really allow time for things like attraction, or at least not for things like _acting on it_. Peter hasn’t looked at someone and thought _yes_ , thought _I want your hands on me_ in what feels like years. But he looks at Tony, and. _damn._

 

* * *

 

The new Spider-suit has a comm unit in the mask. Peter can hear Tony’s ragged breathing in his ear. Everyone else is out of range, but Tony’s still with him.

 

_“Peter. Pete, kid, you’ve got to let go.”_

 

Peter’s fingers are so stiff they’re starting to go numb. It’s cold up in the upper atmosphere, the blue of the sky starting to bleed black. His heartbeat feels erratic—everything feels erratic, the wind buffeting him in short staccatto bursts, the world lurching away like the tail lights of a city bus far below him, his feet swinging bonelessly.

 

The only thing that’s solid is the hull of the space ship he’s holding on to. If he lets go, he’ll be swept sideways by the wind until he’s over the ocean, and there will be nothing to web onto, and he’ll die. “I can’t,” he says. “I can’t, Tony, I can’t—“

 

_“You can, Pete. You gotta. Come on, I’m right behind you, I’m gonna catch you.”_

 

For a second, Peter feels very small. He feels fifteen, curled up in the corner of his bathroom and crying and shaking, hand stuck to the shower curtain, listening to May’s voice through the door, pretending to be fine but needing her. He feels ten, tucked against Uncle Ben’s side in the hospital bed, head resting against the trunk of his chest, feeling the rumble of his voice more than listening. He feels five, and his mom’s singing softly in the kitchen and he’s watching from the living room floor and his dad’s spinning her around…

 

 _“PETER!”_ Tony shouts. _“Let go!”_

 

Peter lets go.

 

The instant their feet hit the ground on the beach in Coney Island, Tony’s suit starts to melt away. His arms are around Peter before the last of the nanotech even makes it back into the wristbands, tight enough to bruise. Peter doesn’t care—he rips the mask of and hugs back, doesn’t even resist the urge to wrap his legs around Tony’s waist. Tony takes his weight, muttering, “You’re okay, you’re okay.”

 

Peter realizes he’s shaking. It doesn’t really click for him, until he’s safe, safe with Tony’s voice and Tony’s arms and Tony’s heartbeat, that that was scary. That was _really fucking scary_ , he almost suffocated, another second and he would’ve been _gone_.

 

He starts laughing. It’s a hysterical sound, the one coming out of his mouth—he doesn’t even recognize it. But Tony joins in, full-body chuckles, and then it’s real. Relieved. Real.

 

* * *

 

Ned punches Harry Osborne in a Starbucks on the Upper East Side.

 

It is, quite possibly, the greatest day of Peter’s life. It’s the first day in a long time that Ned and MJ have been able to convince him to set foot outside during daylight hours, ever since Harry casually drugged Peter over dinner, stole his web fluid research, and walked away without a second glance. (The drugs were adjusted for his metabolism, so it actually took him two whole hours to wake up. By the time he did, he was slumped in the back of a subway train headed for the Bronx and all his belongings were in boxes around him. When Harry Osborne dumps someone, he really goes all out. They never even found the CCTV from the subway, even with all of Ned’s Stark Industries resources.)

 

Anyway, Peter’s been spending his time moping and trying to get drunk. He’s got no job, no thought-he-was-love-of-my-life, and he can’t even take on the big bads with his web fluid specs out there in the wind—not until he develops a new formula, at least.

 

But MJ and Ned storm his room at Aunt May’s like a two-man army. They clean him off and dress him up and all-but carry him out the door. MJ has decided that the thing to solve Peter’s job woes is grad school, and she has the day planned out down to the minute. He’s not allowed to talk about Spider-Man, and he’s not allowed to talk about Harry. All he’s allowed to talk about are classes, campuses, theses, student loans.

 

They’ve just finished a speed-tour of Rockefeller University courtesy of Flash Thompson (who called Peter _Penis Parker_ the whole time) and decide to get a cup of coffee for MJ’s ‘dinner-rush’ through NYU and Colombia. MJ spots him first, the second they step in the door. Peter can tell, because her whole demeanor changes. Ned spots him a second later. Peter’s last. Peter sees Harry—recognizes him even from behind—just as Harry finishes picking up his drink and turns away from the counter. Their eyes lock. Peter doesn’t even think he sees any emotion in Harry’s eyes. It’s just…nothing. Apathy.

 

“Hey!” Ned shouts. People turn to look, and Peter’s frozen.

 

Peter’s frozen, and Ned marches across the crowded Starbucks, winds up, and clocks the millionaire CEO of Oscorp right in his pretty fucking face.

 

MJ catches Harry’s drink deftly before it hits the ground, sips it, and declares to the dozen smartphones trained on her, “Pumpkin spice, really? Are you a teenage girl?”

 

Watching that video is what gets Peter out of bed for a while.

 

* * *

 

It’s the groceries that do it. The groceries are the last straw.

 

Peter feels like an idiot marching through Stark Tower with two hundred dollars’ worth of groceries stuffed in his empty laundry bags, but that doesn’t slow him down. He’s spent most of his life feeling like an idiot. So he makes it all the way up to Tony’s lab before he even hesitates—and even then it’s just for a second, outside the glass, watching Tony bent over a workstation, focused intently on a tiny circuit board.

 

He doesn’t even look up as the door swishes open to admit Peter. Only once he says, “Hey, Pete, what’s up?” and the only answer he gets is the sound of groceries hitting the floor—that’s when he looks up. And frowns. “Pete? Everything okay, kid?”

 

It’s a fair question. Peter walked through the rain to get here—his hair’s plastered to his forehead, his sweater’s soaked, there’s water in his socks. He feels about half a centimeter from bursting into tears. He points to the groceries. “This was you, right?”

 

Tony watches a mango roll across the floor. “Yeah, that was me. I had Happy put them in the fridge with the key you gave me, he threw out some overdue milk—“

 

“You can’t just…” Peter huffs in frustration and drags a hand over his face. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. He doesn’t know why he’s so angry. He feels Tony put down his work and walk toward him, but he doesn’t look at him. He won’t. “My student loans, my suit, my rent, now _groceries?_ Tony, you can’t just—“

 

“But I can, kid. I can afford it.”

 

“I know you can afford it, but _I_ can’t afford it, and you can’t just—“ He cuts himself off. Tony’s close, now. Peter’s skin is cold and wet with rainwater and he can feel the heat of him and he wants to just let it go. He wants to lean in and maybe hug him, maybe bite into his mouth, maybe just go over the new goggles they’re working on. Just be with him. But he can’t, not without asking, “What do you want?”

 

He does look at Tony, then. Tony frowns. “What? What do you mean?”

 

“I know there’s something you want from me,” Peter says tiredly. His stomach is empty, hollow. His bed is empty, his heart is empty. Tony’s always smiling and the Avengers are always smiling and he’s confused. He’s exhausted. “Eventually you’re going to get tired of waiting and just take it, so why don’t we get this over with? Tell me what it is. I’m too—I can’t do this with you. Not with you. So just. Please.”

 

Tony’s not smiling now. He’s as serious as Peter’s ever seen him. His eyes are searching Peter’s face, like they’re doing calculations. Peter sort of wants to leave, just so Tony will stop looking at him like that. Like Peter’s the most important thing in the room.

 

It’s killing him. It’s _killing him_ , because he can’t figure it out. Tony looks at him like he hung the moon, like Aunt May used to look at Uncle Ben, like something he loves. But Peter…Peter doesn’t remember what it feels like to stand on the ground, to reach out to try to touch someone and have them _be there._ Right there. “Tony—“ he says. “Please.”

 

“What do I want from you?” Tony reiterates. He steps closer, close enough that it’s almost like they’re hugging, even though they’re not touching. “To be happy.”

 

Peter frowns, not following. “You want me to make you happy?”

 

“No, kid. No. You make me happy every day, just by existing.” A smile flickers over Tony’s lips. Peter’s eyes follow it, absolutely transfixed. “I want you to be happy. And safe. And amazing, but you already are. Haven’t you seen the headlines? _The Amazing Spider-Man_.” Peter snorts a laugh in spite of himself. Tony’s smile brightens. “See? That, Pete. That’s all I want. Whatever makes you laugh, whatever makes you happy. Nothing else.”

 

It’s a terrifying proposition. It feels, in Peter’s chest, like that brief happy period after the Vulture almost killed him and before Jasper Sitwell found him on a rooftop. It feels like something he hasn’t let himself think about in a really long time.

 

Peter starts to lean in. Tony’s eyes stay locked on his, focus never wavering. Peter can feel Tony’s breath on his lips, warm exhalations. His heart thunders.

 

And the Avengers alarm goes off.

 

* * *

 

The alien invasion is a big one. It’s all hands on deck. Peter swings wildly through the chaos of a 3D battlefield, twists through the air alonside Johnny Storm one second and slides under a bridge to bring Cap back his shield the next, catapults some gruff guy called Wolverine onto an alien speeder and catches Frank Castle as he falls out of the sky.

 

He’s never more than an inch away from certain death, and he always has one eye on Tony. They keep up a constant stream of back and forth on their private channel the whole time, just nonsense stuff, but Peter’s heart beats steadier to the rhythm of Tony’s voice. He sucker punches an alien, laughs at Tony’s _I think Cap just ripped his pants,_ and shouts it to Bucky, who laughs as he rips an alien’s throat out. Sam air lifts him onto one of the command ships and Peter talks through the controls with Tony until they figure out how to bring it down safely. An alien slices Peter’s web just as he reaches the apex of his swing and he barely has time to shout _oh, shit!_ before Tony’s there, catching him. They fight as a team, and they win as a team, and at the end of it, Peter doesn’t have to run away. He doesn’t have to go home and stitch himself up in his bathtub, biting down on a bloody washcloth.

 

* * *

 

Most of the Avengers settle down for dinner. Shwarma, which is apparently a tradition. Peter slips away to ‘change his suit’ and heads in search of Tony.

 

He finds him in the penthouse bedroom, peeling out of his bodysuit in front of the panoramic window, the victorious midday sun casting him in warm yellow light. Peter just stands in the doorway and watches him for a minute, eyes tracing the swell of his shoulders, a dark bruise on his left elbow, the scar across his torso, just under his pectoral. Tony’s not a young man—there’s no pretending he is. But to Peter, even though he can hear the rest of the team’s laughter drifting up from the common area, Tony is the only man in the entire world. Tony is the only man whose hands he wants on him.

 

“Tony,” he says, abruptly. “You. That’s what makes me happy. Nothing else.”

 

Tony turns to him. His bodysuit hangs around his waist, like some sort of wetsuit, and his eyes meet Peter’s, and an understanding passes between them. “God,” Tony says, voice ragged. _“Finally_. Come here, Pete, get over here—“

 

Peter crosses the room in two strides and jumps on him, arms around his shoulders and legs around his waist. Tony takes his weight with only a soft _oof_ , pulls Peter close and buries his face in his neck, just holding him there, close. Right there.

 

It’s Peter who moves away first. Peter who sways back, makes Tony stagger and sit down hard on the edge of the bed, Peter who kisses the orange sunlight on Tony’s forehead, on the bridge of his nose, his cheek, the bow of his upper lip. Tony swears, breathless like someone just punched him in the stomach, and then his hand is on the back of Peter’s head, fingers spread in his hair, and he crushes their mouths together. It’s all pressure at first, desperate pressure, and then Peter makes a broken sound and Tony gentles, rolls Peter’s lower lip between his teeth and soothes it with his tongue.

 

Peter inhales sharply. He’s never— _never_ been kissed like this, like their mouths are just an afterthought, an addendum to the feeling of Tony’s hand cradling his skull, Tony’s arm wrapped around his waist, Tony’s solid hips between his legs, Tony’s skin sticking to Peter’s fingertips as he skims his hands down the back of his shoulders, both of them still ripe with sweat from the battle. It’s like flying and hitting the ground at the same time.

 

Tony pulls away enough to mutter, “Fuck, kid, I want to do everything to you.” Another brief, sticky kiss. “What do you want? Tell me what you want.”

 

Peter’s brain goes off on its own. “I don’t know,” he smiles, bonkers. “Maybe we should put on some holo porn?”

 

Tony snorts into his mouth. It’s like a dam Peter didn’t even know was there breaks. They fall back onto the bed, ribs shaking with laughter, and Peter can taste Tony’s smile.

 

* * *

 

They have a system. It’s a very organized system.

 

Peter still has class, patrols, and his job at the coffee shop (at least for now, because he won’t let Tony pay for Christmas gifts). Tony has Stark Industries, the Avengers, and the occasional celebrity appearance. They’re busy people. It’s hard to find a lot of free time to spend together, and it’s not practical for Peter to sleep at the Tower every night when he has class, not practical for Tony to sleep at the dorm when video evidence of the tryst would be all over the internet in two seconds flat.

 

But it’s not hard to find a free hour. So when they need to see each other, when they can’t go one more second…Peter yells _‘help!’_ into the phone. And when he gets to the Tower, Tony’s waiting. And they set a timer for one hour. And they fall into bed.

 

Sometimes it’s about getting off. Sometimes it’s just about Tony needing to hold him for a while after a bad fight, to remind himself Peter’s still alive. Sometimes it’s an hour of House Hunters, or an hour of sleep, wrapped up in each other, just so Peter can feel safe enough not to jolt awake every five minutes, so Tony’s there to press kisses into his sweaty hairline and murmur, “Shh, Pete, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

 

And sometimes they have more than an hour, but they always have at least an hour. They always make at least that much time. And Tony always says he’s willing to give Peter all the time he wants, something sad in his voice like he expects Peter to want no time at all, but Peter wants forever. He wants twenty-five hours a day. But he’s got school.

 

It’s the happiest Peter’s been in a long time. Maybe ever.

 

He thinks he was hanging on by just his fingertips for a long time. And when you’re hanging by your fingertips, alone, the only thing you can think about is slipping, falling.

 

But then the Avengers grabbed his hand. Tony grabbed his hand.

 

**Author's Note:**

> “You are so brave and quiet. I forget you are suffering.” ~Ernest Hemingway


End file.
